


Fireteam: Wistful Bullet - As One

by Tywyll



Series: Fireteam: Wistful Bullet [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Other, friends - Freeform, interpersonal relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 12:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4059337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tywyll/pseuds/Tywyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a series of adventures that takes place over the course of the careers of the Guardian fire team: Wistful bullet. The three of them became guardians at nearly the same time, and were put in the same fire team.<br/>There will also be excripts from the reports of a fallen captain who has the misfortune to be assigned to study this team by her kell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Careful" Planning

**Author's Note:**

> the work isn't dead, life is just hell, i have most of the next chapter, never grow up children. it's a lie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meet the characters, and see a bit of their interpersonal dynamics.

Three guardians were revived in a five day period, an exo, an awoken, and a human. The speaker and vanguard took it as some kind of sign that the world was about to change. The hope was that they would be at the center of it, hopefully using taking back more of earth for the city. It is with that hope that they are bring trained. Unfortunately, the three of them seem to have taken likings to only one of the others, and it doesn’t seem to be mutual for any of them. The vanguard is desperately hoping that this surprise mission for the three of them will bring them closer together. 

 

There was a small knock at Dros’s door. He put down the paper he was reading, recommended supplies for their mission the following day, and rose from his chair to let in one of his companions. A small thin awoken was standing at the door.  
“Antzuamaren! Welcome to my tiny living space!” Dros said clapping the smaller boy on the shoulder.  
“Please don’t you call me that.” He said stepping into the room. “Just call me Antzu. It sounds better. Less feminine anyway.” The smaller guy, was about 8 inches shorter than Dros’s mildly intimidating 6’3” frame. But despite his slighter frame, he was nearly as strong as Dros, who was training to be a titan. His “of age” tattoo was a small stylized curve around his left eye and seemed to match his vibrant green eyes very nicely.  
“Whatever you say, Antzu! Please, have a seat, you are a little early, so we should have some time to-” another light rapping on the door cut Dros off mid-sentence. “Kill. Come on in Gossamer-12.”  
“Thank you Dros! I hope that you don’t mind me being early, I was hoping that we could get an early start on our planning! And you know I like it when you call me Goss!” she practically glided past him on her way in, as he mumbled something about there being an exo named gauze. She ignored it. Gossamer was only about an inch shorter than Dros, but just as tough. “And I see Antzuamaren is here as well. Lovely. Well, let’s get started, Dros!”  
“It’s great so see you too Goss!” Antzu chimed in.  
“Ok.” Dros pulled three hiking backpacks out from under his bed. “As you know, we’re supposed to be investigating a town about 30 miles east of here, and we’re supposed to walk for some reason. The whole way. Once there, we’re to scout the city for anything Golden Age that we don’t already have here, make a list, and bring it back to the vanguard. Dead orbit will go and retrieve it when we get back. We have approximately 8 days, and the vanguard will send someone to come and get us if we’re not back in 10. I asked around and one of the more experienced titans gave me a list of things that we should probably take with us. I have a few reservations but I want to see what you think.” He handed the list to Antzu, who looked it over for a moment before handing it to Gossamer, who started off the debate.  
“I for one think there’s far too little food. We could be gone for 9 whole days! You guys have to eat something!”  
“There are no rivers or streams on the way there. We don’t have enough water for the trip there and back. Besides, we can hunt if we start to run short on food.” Antzu said shaking his head. “I think we should leave some of the food out to make room for water bottles.”  
“I asked for orbital scans too,” said Dros pulling out a map. “If we ration our water right, we can use this” he pointed at a small circle in the middle of the town, “to refill our water for the trip back. And I do think we could hunt if we needed to so food is less of an issue, but I want to know what we should do about ammo. The list recommends that we only bring a total of three synth packs each. If we get into trouble, we could use a lot more than that.”  
“This close to the City? I doubt that any fallen would be bold enough to attack three guardians without back up.” Goss pointed out.  
“Field reports show that fallen are beginning to form a tighter ring of aggression to about 25 miles from the City. We’ll almost certainly get into a fight.” pointed out Antzu. She sighed.  
“fine, we’ll leave out some food, and replace it with a couple ammo synths. But like you said, we’ll probably end up fighting at some point. If it’s while we’re in town, we should have a decent base of operations. Someplace we can defend well. Let me see those scans…” she studied it for a moment. “ok, this place here,” she pointed to a relatively small boxy building, “is close to the well, and what looks like a crossroads for the city. It also looks like it only has windows on one side, and should be pretty easy to protect. Any complaints?”  
“How do you figure the windows thing?” Dros asked.  
“The shadows of the building around it are longer, so the architecture of the time wouldn’t have windows on the sides that are blocked by taller buildings. No one wants to stare at some wall all day.” She answered. “Anything else? No? then let’s get these things filled, and get some rest!”

They spent the next 20 minutes packing the supplies provided to them by the vanguard into the packs. And bringing up topics only to drop it after a few seconds.

Finishing, Goss stood and shouldered her pack. “Well, I’m gonna go get some sleep, see you guys in the morning!” she waved and walked out.  
Dros turned to Antzu. “so, just you and-”  
“Night.” Antzu interrupted, taking his pack with him on his way to his room.  
Dros let out a puff of air before getting up and closing the door behind Antzu. He stretched out his hand and his ghost materialized there.  
“That was an experience.” It said, bemused.  
“Oh hush. Do you think we made the right decision? With the ammo?”  
“I think there’s a good chance you’ll be hunting, and that you’ll get shot at more than once, so it’s probably not a terrible decision.”  
In her own room, Goss was also talking with her ghost.  
“Well, I didn’t want to kill Antzu this time.” said Gossamer.  
“In his defense, you tend to snub him before he can even open his mouth.” The ghost pointed out. “Maybe if you let him actually talk to you, you wouldn’t hate him so much.”  
She shook her head. “It’s not that, I hate how he shuts out Dros every time he tries to make peace. I don’t actually mind how he talks to me. I just wish he’d be nicer.”  
“He probably wants the same, dear.”  
A few doors down, Antzu’s ghost materialized a few feet above his head on the bed.  
“Are you ok? Your chem patterns are pretty irregular. More than normal.” It asked.  
“Do you think that Goss hates me?” he asked instead.  
“Not particularly. Goss might find something about you annoying, but I don’t think they hate you.”  
“I suppose there’s a lot she could find annoying. Got anything more specific?”  
“Well, it could be that you just assume that they’re female. Exos are technically AI with bodies.”  
“Oh. I might ask her- I mean them tomorrow then.”  
“That’s probably a good idea. Now go to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for giving this a read! it means a lot to me! if you have any questions, or noticed a misspelling or grammar error, please send me a message and i'll get on it right away!


	2. Orders to Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orders from the vanguard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this, I still have to do some stuff to set stuff the rest of the story. From here on out, things should actually be happening.

Sunrise. Gossamer didn’t know why, but it was her favorite time of the day. She usually assumed that it had something to do with the idea of a new beginning, but today something was different. Today, she wanted to spend as much time as she could to just drink in the light. She couldn’t, thou. She had to report to the vanguard so that her team could head out on their mission. Sighing, she left her window, the one with the best view in the city, only according to herself, put on her pack of supplies, and headed for the war room. Upon her arrival, she was delighted to see that only Dros, who was listening to his ghost play some kind of old music, his pack hanging casually over his shoulder, had arrived.  
“Dros! Hello! Good morning!” she called, putting on her best smile.  
“Well, it IS morning. Not sure how good it really is, thou.” He said motioning for his ghost to turn down the music.  
“Why’s that?”   
“Well, we’re gonna stand here for a bit, the vanguard is gonna lecture us, something about teamwork is my guess, and then we’re gonna spend the rest of the day walking. Not very appealing.”  
“I suppose not, but hey, we’re going on our very first real life mission! That’s gotta be worth something!” she clapped him on the shoulder. “Right?”  
He just shrugged. “I guess. I wonder why everyone is so anal about us being the prefect team. Literally no one else ever got this kind of training.”  
“Well, everyone else got put in partial teams with more experienced strikers first. The speaker expects that we’ll somehow turn the tides of everything going on, and so we’re being trained from the ground up to together. We’d get to know each other best this way.”  
Antzuamaren suddenly materialized a few feet away. The straps on his pack were twisted up, and slung across his chest.   
“Hey Goss! Dros. How you two doing?” he asked almost too cheerfully.  
“I’m doing well. What took you so long?” said Gossamer, turning slightly away.  
“Hey Antzu! I’m doing pretty good! What about you?” Dros said, giving him a light punch on the shoulder.  
Antzu rubbed his shoulder where Dros had hit it. “Not appreciated, man. You’re wearing your gear, remember?”  
“Sorry,” Dros interjected.   
“And I was trying to get this pack past this damn shoulder lip thing. I don’t even know why it’s there!” said Antzu, ignoring Dros.   
“Oh. Let’s get not keep the vanguard waiting any longer. Come on.” Goss said, her robes swooshing behind her as she turned into the entryway and strode down the steps. Dros shrugged at Antzu and turned to follow after her.  
Inside, the trio discovered that the vanguard wasn’t even there, instead, Lord Shaxx was waiting for them with a couple of papers.  
“Let’s make this snappy, I don’t like paperwork, even for the Crucible. You.” He pointed as Goss. “My instructions are to assign you to be the fire team leader, and you,” he pointed at Antzu, “are to be the forward scout, while you, titan, are to cover your backs. Your ghosts will be recording your movements, aside from defecating, and those recordings will be reviewed by the vanguard. If you do well, they will have some kind of reward waiting for you. If now, more communications drills. Got all that? Sign here proving that I actually read all this to you, and get going.”  
As the three of them headed for the elevator that lead to the ground floor, Gossamer thought she heard Shaxx mumble something cursing the vanguard. She smiled and called the elevator before turning to Dros.  
“So, you gonna be guarding my rear, wink?” she said with a grin.  
“Uhhh, how do you mean that?” he asked, his ears turning a shade pink. Antzu laughed once and started grinning.  
“Why, isn’t it obvious? I need you watching my back at all times! If you’re not something could happen!” Gossamer said, starting to lean backwards towards the elevator door right as they opened. Dros’s hand shot out and grabbed onto her robe.  
“You mean like that?” he asked as he stepped onto the elevator, letting go of her as soon as she was stable. She remained silent and stepped in, with Antzu following after her.  
“Goss? I have a question for you.” Antzu said nervously.  
“Then ask.”   
“Well, my ghost brought up that I always refer to you as female, but that you’re a form of AI construct with a physical form, and that it was probably impolite to just assume, so I guess what I’m asking is best worded as, are you a boy or a girl? Or something that only exos are?” his face turned bluer with every word.  
She paused for a moment. “Well, exos aren’t made with a gender in mind. I like to think I don’t have one, but my construction has made me resemble a female, so I guess I would prefer to be referred to as a woman. Does that answer your question?”  
He nodded. “Yea, I think. Thanks.”  
“Thank you for asking.” She looked at him for a moment, before turning back towards Dros expectantly. He was listening to music on his ghost again.  
They reached the ground, and the doors swung open. She sighed, put her helmet on and stepped out. “Let’s go boys!”


	3. Guns and Glory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Things are starting to happen. I'm mostly just gonna stop with the summary's and notes unless there's something important that i need to bring up.

Antzuamaren was the last one on the elevator. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she hadn’t asked him anything about his question.  
“Guess we’d better follow them.” He said out loud.  
“That would be wise.” His ghost replied.  
He put his helmet on and followed his team out into the city. He’d only been out a few times, usually his studies kept him from having much free time, but it usually overwhelmed him when he did. The meshing of hundreds of cultures from the flood of people rushing to the city after the collapse had created its own unique form of society. Hundreds of smells rushed through his helmets filter nearly clogging his nostrils, and all the Polly-lingual merchants calling out trying to sell their wares in a thoroughly un-intelligible cacophony that could overwhelm nearly anyone who hadn’t grown up amidst all the noise. It was why, he assumed, most of the guardians preferred the quiet of the tower. It was just less overwhelming.  
He reached up and fiddled with a couple of dials on side of his visors, setting it to just show people and general shapes so he could focus on just navigating the crowds.  
“Come on Antzu! Don’t fall too far behind, or we’ll need to call the vanguard just to find you in the crowd.” joked Dros.  
“Yea, yea, I’m on my way.” He made a mental note to mute Dros unless they ended up in a fire fight. He started trying to do so, but found to his dismay that the vanguard had over ridden that function the last time he had it serviced. He turned on his mike, and began to spew a quiet stream of curses as they snaked their way towards the east city gate.  
Antzu had never been to this part of the city and it amazed him to see how rapidly the state of the city changed as they got closer to the wall. It started out super crowded and vibrant, but the farther they got from the tower the more space between buildings and people there was. It also became far more artistically attractive, directing your eyes towards delicate displays, or shop entrances. It was much more his speed.  
They arrived at the inside of the gate, and were met by 3 titans.  
“You the team that’s walking through? Most just fly you know.” said the middle one.  
“Hey Dorian! Didn’t know you had the wall today!” called Dros.  
“Thought I’d see you guys off. Not often we get an untrained team sent out.” The one Dros called Dorian answered.  
“We’ll go ahead and put you all out, and see ya’ll in about a week and some spare.” chimed in the one on the left.  
“Thank you, we’ll try to be back as soon as possible.” Gossamer said.  
“That’s what everyone says. And then they take several additional weeks to get back.” He said. “Just make it back. Follow me.” He lead them into a small room next to the main gate. “They’re gonna close us in here, and then open up the door on the other side, and then you guys are gonna walk out, and they’re gonna let be back inside the wall. You can start your mission then, and we get to keep the city safe without running any real risks. Got that?” The team nodded quietly, a little shaken by his statement about just making it back. He pressed a button on the wall, and after a second the door swung shut behind him. He stepped across the room and pushed a different button. After another couple seconds, a deep grinding sound began to vibrate the room, rattling the teeth of those who had them as the 30 meter thick door ground out and then apart.  
“Looks clear. Out you go.” The titan said, motioning for them to leave.  
“We WILL be back.” Gossamer said forcefully. “So tell everyone to keep our rooms as they are.” She stepped out into the sunlight and started toward the town. Antzu shook his head and followed her out, leaving Dros with the titan.  
“You might get farther with most other Guardians if you weren’t rude to them like that.” Antzu said to her.  
“That was rude? I was trying to make a joke.” She said sounding a bit embarrassed.  
“Yea, you might want to work on using a kinder tone when we get back. For now, just try less forceful.”  
“Oh well. I might. But if he got offended by that, he should probably not be a titan.”  
Dros came running up to them then.  
“What kept you so long?” Antzu asked.  
“I was just asking if we had the option to bring back some kind of souvenir if we found something, and he said yes! Let’s get a dog.”  
“Let’s not. I’m allergic.”  
“I thought awoken couldn’t have allergies.” said Gossamer giving him a nudge. He didn’t answer.  
“Well, I’m gonna get a dog. I used to have a lot of pets before I died.” Dros said.  
“On that happy note, let’s just focus on putting some distance between here and us! Sound good?” Gossamer said.  
The other two just looked at each other and shrugged, falling in step behind her. For a few hours they walked in silence. Gradually, Antzuamaren grew bored of all the silence.  
“So Dros, what did you do before you died?” he asked.  
“Me? It was nothing big, I worked at a Walmart. I bagged people’s groceries for them after they had finished shopping. It was pretty easy and I enjoyed it. it was nice. What about you?” he replied.  
“I was just a college student. Nothing fancy, just studied the development of new technologies. Mostly it was smart tracking. Wanted to see if we could take some of the risk out of construction by having things virtually build themselves. I actually had some ideas to put them on bullets, like rifle bullets, and see if I could get them to hit specific targets. At the time, I didn’t have the tools to get all the machinery small enough, but it might work now.”  
“for real? So, say I was a pretty shit shot with a scout rifle, and I was aiming for vandal, I pull the trigger, and the bullet could correct a bit for my shot? That’s brilliant!”  
“Yea, but there’s a problem with that kind of bullet: it goes too far, too fast. The bullet wouldn’t be able to correct its trajectory in time.”  
“Oh. I guess it works with the rocket launchers because the moves relatively slow.”  
“Yea. But it might work with something like the fusion rifle or shot gun, there’s enough coming out of there that it could in theory correct some of them on time.”  
“Oh, that’s pretty cool! But, wouldn’t you need to be able to write code into energy for a fusion rifle? How would that work?”  
“I actually hadn’t thought of that. I might just have to go with shotguns then.”  
“Yea, I suppose… it’s a good idea thou!” Dros said before they fell into silence for a couple minutes.  
“Hey Goss, what did you do before the collapse?” Antzu asked quietly.  
“I… I think I was some kind of transport pilot. I don’t really remember too much about what I did, but I do remember being shot out of the sky by a skiff. It was loud, and there was hardly any time to react. I mean, one second it wasn’t there, and the next, there it was, right in front of my ship, and then I was crashing into the ground. I was connected to the ship at the time, so the landing, well, crash, was pretty… taxing to say the least. I think that might have actually been what killed me.” She almost whispered the last part.  
“Oh. That’s kind of shocking. I always thought you went out doing something really big, like, shielding a crowd of people with your body, ya know?” Dros muttered.  
“It wasn’t anything that heroic. The collapse had just started a few days before. I might have had other people on board…” she hesitates before continuing, “there had been news reports pouring in that some kind of robot was invading mercury and spreading rapidly, and cabal had already swarmed mars, so they went dead almost overnight, the hive had just started their assault on the moon too. Everyone was panicking…” The trio fell silent again. They didn’t need to hear the rest of the story; they knew the history from their lessons with the vanguard.  
Venus fell weeks after the fallen and vex both launched attacks on it, and humans were only left on earth. The remnants of the governments decided that a last stand of sorts was the only remaining option, and began herding everyone towards Russia. The traveler gave birth to the ghosts, who in turn brought back the first order of titans, the first guardians to fight for humanity. The whole of Russia was deemed too large to defend, especially with so few fighters. A single city was designated to be the hold out point, and it was there that the titans lead the pilgrims. The city was built upon their backs, the walls built to shelter those already inside. Then the battle of six fronts happened.  
It was a military law that an army defending two fronts will always fall. The titans had six. Fallen attempted to swarm the walls from all sides, desperate to get in and end the human race, the titans held firm. Hundreds of them couldn’t be revived however, and their armor became the Gallahorns. The titans drove back the fallen, and the walls haven’t seen such an attack since. The history is always hammered into each new guardian, titans especially. To be proud of the banner they now carry, and proud of the legacy they are now a part of.


	4. Fire Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I lied. Here's some more exposition. i could probably leave most of this out. But I'm not.

Dusk fell. They were still marching on. Gradually, Dros began to run out of steam.  
“Guys? If nothing else, I need a breather.” He said. “All this armor is really heavy!” Goss stopped and looked around before pointing into a stand of trees.  
“Let’s set up camp there. Hopefully, we’ll be harder to spot while we’re in there.” She said starting over to it. The others followed her in a little ways before they all stopped and dropped their bags.  
“Ooooh, thank god!” Dros said putting his hands on his hips and bending over, trying to stretch. “That bag was starting to be a pain in my ass!”  
“Then I’m glad I don’t have one.” Goss said giving him a nudge.  
“Be very glad.” Antzu said. “Whose idea was it to make these bags my size?”  
“Mine. I’ll help you beat me up when we get back. So much regret.” Dros answered.  
“While you two suffer, I’m gonna make a bit of a fire. Make us some seats, yea?” Goss requested, starting to make a fire pit.  
“Out of what?” Dros grunted straitening up.  
“You’re a big strong guy, knock down a tree.” joked Antzu. To his horror, Dros seemed to consider it, starting to push on one of the trees. “No! I didn’t really mean it!” he shouted, grabbing onto Dros’s arm. “What if it falls back on us?”  
“I’m… pushing it down. It’s gonna fall the way I push it. I’m not gonna let it fall on us. Besides, it’s pretty small, only about a foot thick, you could push it off of you if it did fall on you. I will have to weaken it some before it goes down.” Antzu let go.  
“Oh, ok. I guess that makes sense. Don’t strain too hard, we still have a couple days of walking to go.” He went back to the bags and straitened them up pulling a small meal bar out of his and nibbling at it. Dros shook his head and went back to working on his tree, tearing at the roots to help topple it.  
“Hey Dros, when we become official guardians, what do you want to do? We do get long term designations after all. Things to do when we’re not working in the field and all.” Gossamer called to him.  
“Well, I think I’d like to make gear for everyone. I mean, none of this stuff is perfect, but there’s a lot of little design flaws in so much of it. For example, most of the gear that the hunters use,” he snapped a root, “only covers their front! Nothing to the sides, or back! It’s like they think they’ll never get flanked!”  
“Somehow, I can see you doing that. How would you improve on the design?” she asked.  
“Bear in mind, it has to be really flexible, lightweight, and quiet.” Antzu interjected. Dros nodded in his direction  
“Well, you know how chain-link works? Like on the knights from the dark ages?” he asked. Antzu nodded, and Goss just looked at him.  
“Sure, but wouldn’t that be a little loud?” she asked.  
“Oh yea, if that was all there was too it, that would be a terrible idea! But it’s the idea of overlapping parts that move a lot that I’m thinking of. Sheets of plasteel or spinmetal down the sides would allow for movement, while still keeping you covered, right? Or if that’s too loud, metal V’s with micro hinges in the middle, instead of sheets. They can fold to let muscles flex, and because they’re not locked together, can still move around, providing cover similar to titan greaves, minus most of the weight.” He said proudly, gesturing as he made descriptions to help prove his point.  
“And what about us warlocks? How would you improve us?” Gossamer asked. Dros hesitated a moment before he began.  
“You do a lot of stuff that I don’t understand with void, and I’m not really sure why you use a lot of cloth, and not much metal, so I don’t think I’d tamper much with that, but I would like to add something solid in there, so that you can have at least half a chance of stopping a bullet if you needed to. Basically, I just want to find a way to make it generate a micro bubble, or reactive solidification, but that’d take a hell of a lot of glimmer to pull off!” he snapped another root. “Not to mention any failed attempts!” he stood up and gave his tree a little shove before returning to breaking roots.  
“What about the titan gear? How would you fix that?” prodded Antzu.  
“Well, for the most part, the big weakness in titan gear is the fact that the stomachs, and neck, are basically covered by leather. Rise up the armor around the neck, or make a guard and that’s taken care of, but the stomach is a bigger problem. Best idea I’ve got for it is to put in small, slopped half-bands around the middle so that it’s at least covered a bit better. I can’t really borrow my ideas from the hunter gear, it’d get in the way and stop movement there. And the warlock idea wouldn’t provide as much cover as most titans are used to so that doesn’t really work either. Chainmail might actually not be a bad idea in this case!” he laughed and pulled out another root. “We’re not exactly quiet so it doesn’t really change anything!” he smiled and stood up, putting one foot on the side of the tree, leaning into in and toppling it easily. He brushed his hands off and smiled.  
“Good ol’ firebreak! ‘Armor so heavy it can crack stone!’ brings trees down nicely too!”  
Goss stared at him for a moment.  
“You’ve been marching in that all day? How?”  
“It’s got ribbing and some hydraulics; I don’t carry the whole weight of it, only about 25 kilos. Oh, and the pack, so about 30 in all.” He said.  
“Christ, you’re a dumbass! Even with the pack I only carry about 20!” Antzu exclaimed.  
“I guess it’s just a difference in training?” he said sheepishly.  
“A difference in training my ass!” said Antzu.  
“Careful! Your Freud is showing!” Goss laughed, making Antzu blush, as Dros laughed with her.  
“Toss me some of those branches, I’m gonna get this fire started.” She said, still grinning. Dros dragged the downed tree closer to the fire pit, stomping off branches and handing them to Goss, who rubbed her hands together and summoned a small amount of solar energy into her palm. She used the heat to ignite one of the branches before releasing it into the atmosphere. Antzu watched it dissipate in awe.  
“You gotta teach me how you do that.” He whispered.  
“It’s like summoning your Golden Gun, but without so much demand. Imagine that you’re just scooping it out like soft ice-cream, and you’ll get it eventually.” She said. “I saw your scores, from the class testing. They were pretty amazing, why’d you decide to go hunter?”  
“I didn’t. The vanguard just decided that I was gonna be one. Said I tested highest in stealth and efficiency. They wanted me to get better at it.” he answered, sounding mildly annoyed.  
“I can kind of understand it thou. You usually don’t come out and talk to people right away. You sit back, watch a while, and then address them. Then you find out if you like them or not really fast, and start either avoiding them, or actively seeking them out. It’s kinda your pattern.” Dros said. “I can see that translating well into your training. Watch, wait, find an opening, strike, and get out. I think you’re probably pretty good at it.”  
“You tested extremely well in protectiveness, and aggression. Low in void aptitude thou. There’s no question about why you became a titan.” Goss said. “Your personality scores showed that you would throw yourself into a cabal firebase naked to get out a friend, you’d come out with a couple cabal over your shoulder too.” He turned toward his bag and pulled out dinner.  
“Your personality scores showed that you have a special distain for unimportant information. Why did you gather this about us?” Antzu asked, finishing his meal bar.  
“Because…” she paused, “Because I knew I would be teamed up with you, and I wanted to have an idea on how you worked?”  
“Are you asking us, or telling us this?” Antzu pried.  
“I think I’m telling you? I don’t know, I was mostly just watching Dros’s training, and when I found out that this was a rare event, three guardians in such a short time, I looked for more on you.” She nodded towards Antzu. “I don’t really have any other reason, I just... did.”  
“Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad someone explained why I’m a titan!” Dros said grinning and slapping his chest. Antzu rolled his eyes.  
“Look, if you wanna know about us, you could just ask. I personally am quite happy to answer any questions.” He said, looking between the other two. "For now, I'm just gonna sleep, and I recommend that you do too."

"I'll stay up and keep watch!" Goss offered.


	5. alternatives

Goss sat quietly contemplating why she was chosen by her ghost. She knew that in order for her to actually come up with a reason, she had to know more about her past. She knew more than she had told the others but it was trivial information, like, skiffs shot had actually killed her, but the connection with the ship kept her “alive” long enough to belly land the transport, and open all the bay doors. She knew it probably hadn’t saved anyone but she did it anyway. She spent the majority of her nights trying to recreate her memories from what fragments she had. She never really made any progress so she just kinda let the process happen in the background while she watched and made sure that her teammates weren’t attacked. When dawn came, she stopped and stood up, quickly checking to make sure that all her joints were still working, and started to shake Dros awake.  
“My shift now?” he asked sitting up and rubbing the side of his face.  
“No, it’s morning.” She started shaking Antzu. “Wake up, buttercup. The miles won’t walk themselves.”  
“Did you stay up all night? You’ve gotta be exhausted!” Dros exclaimed, sitting upright.  
“I’m and Exo. I only need to nap once a week, and then it‘s only for an hour. Mostly it’s so I can refile memories, and stuff like that.” She said as Antzu opened his eyes.  
“Wait, why is it morning?” he asked.  
“I’m Exo. I don’t need a sleeping shift for another 3 days.” she answered.  
“Oh. That’s handy.” He said standing up. “Shall we eat on the road?”  
“I’m up for it.” Dros said, stretching.  
“Yea, we can save some of that time then!” Goss said smiling.  
They stomped out the fire and began walking east towards the town.  
“So, Antzu, how did you die?” Goss asked.  
“Me?” Antzu sounded surprised.  
“Well, I’m not Antzu, so I would assume that she’s talking to you, man!” Dros laughed.  
“I was driving an old 2685 Maraow speeder, trying to dodge fallen and head for a cave in old Sweden that I had heard was a hold out zone. I basically drove right into a fallen trip mine. The car went up in flames, and I couldn’t get out. Pretty sure I suffocated.”  
“You had an ‘85 Maraow? Jesus! How’d you afford it?” Dros exclaimed. Antzu grinned.  
“I hotwired it.” he smiled. “My parent’s always said that I shouldn’t do that kind of thing,” he paused “but I really loved doing it!” Dros’s brow furrowed momentarily, before moving on.  
“Where’d you learn to hotwire?” he asked.  
“There was an opportunity to take classes on vehicular engineering and one thing lead to another.” Antzu shrugged. “I wasn’t taught outright, but it was implied.”  
“Oh, I guess I just never expected that of you!” said Dros.  
“And what DO you expect of me?”  
“Well, kind of upright, a real strong silent type, with an amazing moral compass. It’s just the vibe I get from you.”  
“Trust me that’s really not like me at all! Even before the galaxy went to shit, I had a lot of problems with the law. I have a bit of a criminal record, if the city ever retakes Berlin, I may have some problems.”  
“Problems with what?” Goss inquired.  
“Well, I was arrested a couple of times for breaking and entering, and once for possession of stolen property and drugs.”  
“What was all of it for? I mean, ever sense I’ve known you, you’ve never done anything without a reason.” Dross asked.  
“I’ve always needed some special medication, but it’s really expensive and my parents really didn’t approve of my using it, so I had to try and find different ways of getting it. That’s pretty much every reason that I’ve ever had issues with the law.” Antzu said quietly.  
“That sounds like a crime; your parents actions too. They should have helped you be healthy.” Goss said.  
“Yea, making you have to steal medication is a pretty terribly thing to do.” Dros said, adjusting the straps on his backpack.  
“Well, the medication wasn’t exactly necessary for my survival, it would have just helped me be more comfortable and happy. But I got my ghost to fix that stuff after they revived me! So I’m doing a lot better now than I was before!” Antzu said smiling kinda sheepishly.  
“That’s awesome then!” Dros said, giving him a gentle-ish slap on the back.  
“Yea… Do you mind if we talk about something else for a while? I just don’t like to think about that… stuff.” Antzu asked.  
“Alright! We can totally talk about other stuff! Like… uh… do you have any hobbies?” Dros asked  
“Not really; I mean, I liked to play a couple sports, and video games but that was about it.” Antzu answered.  
“What games did you play?” Goss asked.  
“Mostly fps, like Modern Warfare 88: fringe freedom. It’s kind of ironic; I used to love those games, now I’m really wishing they hadn’t given me expectations.”  
“Yea, they were nothing like this.” Dros waived his hand around. “But I do like that the thing where you don’t ever have to take a shit was pretty realistic. The ghosts are amazing!”  
“Thanks” the ghosts chimed in unison, making the six of them laugh. After a few moments they got quiet, and marched on that way for a few minutes.  
“Goss, what’s your favorite kind of music?” Antzu blink forward to walk next to her, and making her jump a bit. “Sorry.”  
“Hmmm… If I have to pick just one, it would have to be pop synth.” She said. “What about you?”  
“I prefer more classical stuff, like Sanitarium, or Guns N’ Roses.” he replied.  
“That, I can get behind.” Dros said. “Goss, do you mind if I play some as walking music?”  
“Not at all, but how does that work? These helmets don’t have external speakers.”  
“I made a couple modifications to my chest plate, I’ve got a speaker right over my heart!” he slapped his chest and a thick panel popped forward and slid to the side, revealing the speaker as promised. “Ghost, how about playlist 9?” Frei im Freien Fall by Tokyo Hotel started to pour out decently loudly. “Thank you!” he said. Inside his helmet Dros’s ghost started to talk to him.  
“You do know that you can name us, or rather just me, right? You don’t have to just call me ghost.” It said, muting his mic.  
“Really? Just, any name?” he asked skeptically.  
“Yes. As long as it’s not something insulting, like fart-smell, any name will do.”  
“Oh… how does Bia sound?”  
“I think I like it! She was the goddess of violence and physical force, right?”  
“If I’m remembering things correctly, yea, she was!”  
“Well, thank you! I’m gonna go ahead and turn your mic back on!” Bia said cheerfully.  
“You know, I think I might know the words to this song.” Goss said. “It’s something about living life to the fullest, right?”  
“Yea, I think that’s about right.” Antzu answered.  
“Close, but it’s actually about letting fame go to your head, and falling into loneliness, but I mostly like the way it sounds!” Dros said happily.  
“Yea, I kinda just want to listen if that’s alright with you guys.” Antzu said quietly.  
“Yea, you do you man! I can have my ghost, er, Bia, send a feed right to your helmet so you can mess with the sound if you’d like.”  
“Bia?” Goss asked.  
“I named my ghost!” he answered.  
“Sure, that’d be great. Thanks Dros.” Antzu said, flicking off his com, and immediately turning it back on. “I really do mean that, but I just don’t particularly want to talk right now.” Dros shrugged.  
“I figured it was something like that. Enjoy the songs!” he said, and stepped forward to talk with Goss. “It looks like he’s going into one of those moods. What do you think triggers them?”  
“I think it might just be that social interaction wears him out. I mean, you saw how shy he was when you first met him. But-”  
“Yea, it took me 25 minutes just to get him to shake my hand.” Dros interrupted.  
“Yes. But I think he’s probably got the right idea, we should probably still be saving more energy for this long ass march; we’ve still got another day ahead of us.” she finished.  
“Yea, you’re probably right. I’ll be quiet for a while.” He said a little dejectedly.  
“Thank you. We can all talk more when we stop for a break in the afternoon.” She said, trying to console him. He sighed.  
“She’s right about the energy thing,” Bia said. “But if you weren’t always asking me to keep out of your head, you could talk to me that way.”

“I suppose I could.” He thought out loud. “What’s life like as a ghost?”  
“Right into it then! Well, it’s kinda quiet. When I first started looking for a guardian, for you, I was very worried. I was always afraid of getting picked up by fallen, or just wandering until my light went out, but as I went along, I got used to everything, and kinda relaxed a bit more. I stopped and enjoyed the scenery sometimes. I’ve still got scans of some of them! But now that I’ve got you, I’m kinda busy! Just keeping your vitals and cognitive waves aligned is enough to keep me on my toes! Metaphorically, of course.”  
“Wait, you keep my brain working? Does that mean that I’m just your puppet?”  
“No, I just make sure that your brain doesn’t die in your head.”  
“Oh. That is much appreciated.”  
“Just doing my job! So what do you think we’ll find when-” Antzu froze ahead of them, his scout rifle trained on something in the distance. Goss pointer her auto rifle in the same direction, though less certain of the exact location.  
“What do you see?” Dros asked Antzu, turning his pulse rifle in the opposite direction to cover their collective backs.  
“You remember the training videos where they showed us the vandal stealth tech?” he didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “I thought I saw the distortion from one of them moving quickly. I’m having my ghost check heat signatures now.”  
“I’m getting nothing from my scans.” Goss said. “What about you Dros?”  
“I don’t see anything, if nothing else, nothing is sneaking up on us.” He answered.  
“No heat signatures either.” Antzu piped up. “False alarm.”  
“That was good though. We had a pretty good reaction time, and Dros made sure we weren’t about to be flanked unexpectedly.” Goss said, stowing her gun. “Plus, we have probably entered the fallen aggression zone. We do need to be extra careful.”  
Antzu kept scanning the horizon threw his scope. He paused for a moment while pointing towards a stand of trees and pulled the trigger and stowed his gun as well.  
“There was a deer. I’ll put it in my inventory, and we’ll cook it when we get into town. Any objections?” he asked. No one else said anything and he nodded. “I’ll go get it then.” And he began a series of blinks to and from the trees.  
“Let’s go!” he said when he had returned.


	6. search

Goss was glad that Antzu had noticed the shimmering in the distance. She had noticed it less than a second before, but it was a long way off and she didn’t want to point it out if it wasn’t there. She was also halfway certain that Antzu had also wanted to get closer and reassure himself that it was nothing but she worried about what he’d found. He and shot something, and had definitely brought it back.   
A few moments after they resumed their march, she opened a private channel with him.  
“What did you really pick up?” she asked  
“It really was a deer. But I did want to get a closer look at what I saw.” He replied.  
“What was it?”  
“A skiff. Its heat train indicated that it was headed north, away from here… What’s the plan Goss? That’s gotta mean something.” She silently opened the channel up to Dros.   
“Antzu said he ran a scan while he was getting the deer. We did see something. It was a skiff hitting its cloaking.” She said.  
“Well, there’s no denying that we’re in fallen territory now.” He said flatly.  
“Yea, no shit.” Antzu said sarcastically. “We were in fallen territory the second we left the city!”  
“Calm down, we need to think. Dros, some titans can make void bubbles, right?” Goss interjected. He nodded.   
“Yea but I’ve never made one larger than 8 feet in diameter.” He answered. It was her turn to nod.  
“That’s perfect, but from now on, we should probably sleep side by side, within bubble range. Any unwelcome surprise should have to fight really hard to get to us. Sound like a plan?”  
“Yea, I’m good with that.” Dros said.  
“If it’ll help keep me from being dead.” Antzu responded.  
“Then it sounds like a plan.” Goss said, rubbing her palms together. Let’s get some more ground covered before sundown.”  
She took off at a light run she knew they could all keep up for the rest of the day.

 

Later that afternoon, they spotted a long smudge on the horizon.  
“Is that it?” Dros asked.   
“I think so.” Goss answered. “We probably still have about 4 hours of running before we get there, though.” Bia confirmed it out loud for everyone.   
“So we still using that box building when we get there?” Antzu asked.  
“I have no arguments against that. Goss?” Dros answered.  
“Yea. And we should restock our water after we secure the base.” She suggested.  
“Counter suggestion, I can turn invisible. You two secure the base and start that deer, and I’ll resupply the water.” Antzu offered. “It gets Dros and I water faster, and secures the area just as well.”  
Goss thought a little bit and nodded. “That makes sense. You do that when we get there.”  
They continued running together until they reached the city, where Antzu’s HUD lit up a side street, informing him that it would be a faster way to the well.  
“Keep going, I’ll meet back up with you at the base.” He said as he split off from the rest of the team.  
“Ok, be safe, don’t do drugs, don’t talk to strangers, take a coat!” Goss called, making Dros laugh.  
“What if they’re really hot?” Antzu joked.  
“Then introduce me! I’m sure the vanguard would love to see me try and hit on someone!” Dros suggested, trying not to trip. “Now shhh! You’re supposed to be on a super-secret stealth mission!”  
“Whatever! Just don’t have too much fun without me! Wink!” he laughed into his com and shut out of the channel.  
“Ok, Dros, how soon should we slow down and start checking buildings around the base?” Goss asked him.  
“Well, personally, I think when we can see it, we should probably make a dead sprint for the door, and make sure that’s safe first, and then check the ones around it. Antzu is gonna expect that place to be safe first, so we should probably make sure that it is. You know, so he’s not dead when we find him. He might appreciate that!” he suggested.  
“I can see him being very appreciative of that. Alright, we’ll sprint for the base, and then move to the other buildings.” She said with a nod. “I’ll break right, you break left when we get there.”  
“Done. If you start shooting, I’ll come running.”  
“Same for you. Just keep an eye out for human scavengers. I’ve heard that there are some people who managed to hide out away from the fallen, so if you see them, don’t shoot.”  
“Got it. Only make a hit on fallen.”  
“Exactly.” They turned a corner and saw the base, a small drugstore with metal grills covering the front windows, and behind the front door. “6 seconds till we’re in?”  
“I’ll get the door” Dros said speeding up a bit.  
“4 seconds.” She said. Dros reached the door, braced himself, and blasted his foot threw the locks.  
“Ladies first.” He said, holding the door open and pointing his gun towards one of the far isles.   
“Why thank you.” She swung her gun around the entrance, and started drifting towards the right side of the room, pointing her auto rifle down each of the isles, while Dros did the same down the left side.  
“Do you think any of the medications in here are still worth anything?” Dros whispered threw their com.   
“I doubt it. I think most of it probably expired at least 60 years ago, if not longer. Good idea though. We might be able to find some other stuff like that that would work. Water bottles or wine or some kind of booze. It would be aged, and could probably be sold for a pretty decent price. Dead Orbit will be very happy.”   
They quietly combed through the rest of the store making sure that there were no fallen hiding in any of the back rooms. When they were sure that there was nothing hidden in the shadows, they met up at the front of the store.   
“I don’t see Antzu coming up the street. Next building?” Goss asked.  
“Yea, I’ll leave him a sign that we already cleaned threw this building.” Dros pulled a bunch of boxes off the shelves, and wrote out clean on the floor with them. “Ok, let’s get the one across the street.” Goss nodded and he charged across the street, slamming shoulder first threw the front door. As soon as he was in, he swung his pulse rifle in all directions, covering all the angles. Goss was right behind him, quickly heading for the first hallway, making sure that there would be nothing investigating the sound from the front door. After a few moments, they meet up again.   
“First floor looks clean” Gossamer-12 said. “Want head up to the second floor?” Dros nodded. “Then, ladies first, up you go Dros!”  
“Wow, thanks!” Dros said with a laugh as he started up to the second floor up a broken escalator. After a quick scan, they went back down the stairs, and returned to the drug store to wait for Antzu. A few moments later, he walked in with all the water refilled.   
“Hey, you guys wait long?” he asked setting down his pack.  
“Nope, we actually just finished making sure that this building, and the one across the street were fallen free.” Dros grinned. “Did you meet any hot strangers?”  
“No! Just a couple of flies! But something about this place seems wrong.” Antzu said.  
“It’s probably just the total lack of humans. We have been living in the city for the last couple months, and that’s packed like nothing else.” Goss suggested. Antzu nodded.  
“Yea… that does make sense. I suppose that it could just be that it’s really quiet. I’ll probably calm down by tomorrow.”  
“Hopefully!” Dros said. “Well, I’m a little nervous, but should we check the other buildings for salvage?”  
“Yea, we probably should. Should we start by spiraling out from here?” Goss suggested.  
“You’re the boss!” Antzu said. “Let’s do it!” Goss nodded.  
“Alright, let’s head out!” Goss stood up and headed out the door.


	7. Exploration

“Left yea?” Antzu asked, sweeping his rifle up to check the windows on the building at the end of the street.   
“Yea I mean, it’s a direction.” Goss said looking around. “Let’s get going.” She started slowly headed for the door of the building next to them, breaking into a sprint a few feet from the door, and diving threw a broken window at the last second.   
“This rooms clear, come on threw the door, it’s actually unlocked.”  
“Goss, its hanging open about 3 inches, it’s kinda clear that it’s unlocked.” Dros said.   
“Well… yea… just get in here.” she said, a little irritated. Antzu let out a small chuckle and pushed the door open training his gun on the escalators in front of them. Dros followed in behind him, sweeping his gun down each new isle, Goss doing the same on the other side. They appeared to be in some department store, the whole place was covered in clothing racks that still had moth-eaten clothing draped all over the hangers, and makeup smeared in various fallen symbols on the walls. Goss swore when she saw them.  
“They’ve already been here. There’s probably nothing good left.” She mumbled into the headset. Antzu shrugged, and motioned them all forward and began to sweep around the ground floor, before headed up the escalators, with Goss aiming down behind them. This floor had dishwashers and laundry machines scattered everywhere, most of them looked broken, the sides ripped open and the insides gutted, but a few looked like they might still run if they replaced the glass and nobs. This floor scanned much more quickly than the first and the moved up again. And again. And again. And then they stopped. This floor was unlike the others before them. It was a maze of fabric hung up in some crazy pattern resembling a maze.  
“I don’t like this.” Antzu said, pointing his rifle around in all directions. “I really don’t want to be here.” Goss nodded.  
“We need to search at least a little of it.” she swung her gun around in a slow circle. Bia opened a small circle in the corner of Dros’s HUD.  
“I can scan a 10 meter radius for movement if you’d like.” She lit up a blue blip right next to the center when Antzu started to move off into the maze. “Blue is friendly, red not so much. The other ghosts are doing it too, or I wouldn’t be able to make the distinction.”  
“Thanks Bia! That should help a lot!” Dros said back to her. “Say, is there anything you’d like when we get back to the tower? I mean, ghosts are always helping guardians, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of guardians doing anything for the ghosts.”   
“Well, I... I don’t think... I mean, that’s not… No. it’s never been offered. Not to my knowledge. But yea, there is something I’d like. I’ll tell you about it later, when you don’t need your ears so much.” Dros thought he heard something like embarrassment in her voice, but he shrugged it off and continued searching with the others.

After about 45 minutes of wandering through the maze, they came to an open space with a woman in it.   
“Goss, check for vitals, Dros and I will keep an eye out for anything else weird.” Antzu said.  
“Why did you specify me?” she asked.  
“Probably because she’s naked. Antzu’s an awoken, remember? He can’t touch her. It’s a violation of her privacy in the Reef society.” Dros explained. “It would be like if I walked in on Madam Rhyes when she’s in the shower, only he might live to regret it.” Madam Lilyana Rhyes was the warlock mentor. She had been born in Canada a year before the collapse, and had managed to survive for 17 years before the fallen finally managed to corner and kill her. She had been raised Muslim for the first 15 years on the run, but her family had been killed by a squad of vandals between Winnipeg Canada and Minot North Dakota. She had come back and found the vandals searching their bodies, and brutally eliminated each of them. Dros would not have had time to apologize for intruding before she removed his head with her bare hands.  
“Oh. That’s a fair point.” She said squatting down next to her body and putting two fingers on the side of her neck. She grimaced feeling her fingers slid into a vertical slit that she hadn’t notice down the woman’s trachea. “She’s dead.” She pulled her fingers out and wiped them on the back of her robes.   
“You sure?” Antzu asked.  
“Well, my fingers touched her spine threw a neat little slit in her throat, so I’m gonna have to say yes.”   
“Shit, she looked like she was still alive. And I don’t think we can smell her yet. She can’t have been dead for long.” Dros said. “We should probably get back out of here. Bia? Do you still have our most efficient path in here?”  
“Yes, would you like directions?” she asked while Dros nodded. She pulled up a small arrow in his HUD and started pointing the correct way out while they jogged back towards the exit. They paused when they were back on the first floor, checking one last time to see if anything had changed and listen for noises from outside. When they determined that there was nothing they went out and checked the next building and the next, and the next gradually searching for anything else that showed the fallen had been there. They didn’t find anything other than torn up machines and the occasional marking.  
When they had returned to their makeshift base that evening, Goss decided to put some thoughts into words.  
“Guys, this building is the only one that didn’t have any signs that the fallen had been in here. Literally every other building on this block had been torn open and smashed apart. And there’s a maze in the building next to us with a dead woman at the center. I think we chose to park our ass’s right next to the base of a bunch of killer aliens. We also haven’t found anything resembling good golden age tech.”  
“What are you suggesting?” Antzu asked, pulling the deer out of his inventory and towards the back of the building. “What part do you want Dros?” he nodded towards the deer at his feet. Dros shrugged, and Gossamer started talking slowly, trying to make sure she was being understood.  
“Well, there’s no guarantee that we’ll find anything, and a good chance that we’ll spend the next several days in an atom soup, waiting for the vanguard to arrive. If we stay, we’ll probably fail our mission, and have to continue our training, from the beginning. If we leave, however-“  
“I’M NOT GONNA FUCKING LEAVE!” Antzu shouted. “I can’t, not if I want to stay…” to Dros, it looked like he was about to start crying. “I have to finish this mission, if nothing else!”  
“Antzuamaren!” Dros shouted over him. “Calm down, I don’t know what’s wrong with you right now, but calm down!” his voice quieted a bit. “Explain what your problem is, and we’ll try to help.”  
“I-no. just… I’m not gonna let this mission fail. We have to finish it. That’s all there is to know.” He replied, darkening his helmet, and digging his knife into the dead deer, cutting it into more manageable cooking chunks.  
Goss and Dros were silent for a moment before Dros shrugged, and motioned for Goss to try and figure him out. Goss let out an in-audible sigh, before slowly and carefully putting a hand on Antzu’s shoulder.   
“Antzu, why do we need to stay here? Is there something going wrong back at the tower? Is Madame Coulaum being too hard on you?” Madame Coulaum was the hunter mentor from Tibet. She was a harsh woman, and was determined to never have a single student become irretrievable. Her training regimens were questionable to anyone who wasn’t a hunter, and seemed very unorthodox, until you mastered their meaning. She had watcher her whole village die at the hands of the fallen, before finally being blasted by a shrapnel rifle being held by a captain at the age of 22.  
Antzu shook his head, “My problem is with my parents. I don’t want to talk about it, ok?” he stood up and walked into the back room, looking for a pot to heat water to boil their deer in.  
“Well, it’s a start.” Dros said. “But for the record, I’m with him. I want to finish the mission. It IS our first after all.”  
Gossamer sighs and nods. “I want it to go well too, but the odds are stacked well against us. There’s every chance that we’ll die a lot here.”  
“Then we’ll just have to stack it better.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so, i was relatively regular with updates, and then, my dad got rid of the wifi, so frequency, doesn't really exist. i'll try to get them out at least once a month, but that may not happen.


	8. name of chapter here, probably with a pun or something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> discussion and meta changes.

Antzu ran rather quickly to the end of the street, aiming his gun down each street, quickly checking for signs of life before turning off his active camo generator, and entering the building to his right. He ran a quick loop of the store grabbing any cloth, metal and glass he could find. Using his knife, he cut all the cloth into long strips and tied the ends together. He then ran the line of cloth across the street two buildings down, and broke small holes in the windows on either side of the buildings. He ran the cloth threw the openings and back to their base before carrying the glass and metal back to the base. He repeated the process on the other end of the street, and the alleys on either side of the pharmacy. That done, he carried what looked like a lot of trash inside the base and had Dros help him make nets to hold the glass and metal, which would be jangled about and making a lot of noise if the fallen, or anything else tripped over, or pulled on the cloth lines.  
“Nice idea all this. Gives us all some time to rest and sleep and stuff.” Dros said.  
“Yea, it was more or less just to give us some for warning. If something wanted to come in here.” he answered. “should be just enough to get the guns loaded and aimed!” Dros laughed.  
“It probably will! But I sleep like a rock, remember! We might only have enough time to load the guns!”  
“Then you should just keep yours loaded! Use the safety! It’s there for a reason, idiot!”   
“Pshhh! No, not for titans! Titans are the safeties! And the bullet walls!”  
“That’s true! The madam said the walls were built on the backs of the titans! In some places, that’s literal…”  
“Yea… speaking of which, have you heard some of the older guardians talking about some gear? Something about a rocket launcher made from the first titans. It’s got a really stupid name, but supposedly it’s the single greatest weapon ever made.”  
“You mean that galjaren, or whatever the hell it’s called? I don’t trust those claims, I think it’s a lot of bullshit to get newer guardians to go ape for a piece of shit.”  
“Eh, you could be right, but I want to believe. Speaking of great weapons, why do you use a scout rifle? I mean, I get that you probably want to be able to stay way the fuck away from fallen, or hive or whatever, but you could just as easily do that with a pulse rifle, or a hand cannon primed for range.” Antzu shrugged.  
“You can’t really put a silencer on those. I mean, you can but you really shouldn’t. if you put one on a scout rifle, you can get an extra shot off before things figure out where you are.”  
“But you could just use a sniper rifle for that, and you can stay farther away with one of those.”  
“But then you only have, what, five shots before you have to reload? You’re better off using a shotgun, or a pistol- excuse me, a “side arm”- as a secondary weapon. Use the scout rifle for some pretty decent range, and one of those for anything that gets to close. Why do you use a pule rifle? You don’t have that great of range, and you don’t have quite the same ability to spray lead as an auto-rifle. You’ve just got three bullets, and then you’ve gotta pull it back down.”  
“Because they can potentially bust threw three enemies, and give me some space to work with. And the fusion rifle works to take down bigger enemies too. Like captains, or knights.”  
“But you only get about 7 trigger pulls, and you probably won’t even get 7 kills out of it either, you’d be better off with a hand cannon, they can usually one shot shield less captains, assuming you get them in the face.”  
“But then what do you use as a secondary? A shotgun? They have even less range, and only a small chance of actually getting multiple kills per pull. A sniper rifle? Like you said, only a few shots per clip and then you’re sitting with a huge middle range where neither of them is really effective, and you can’t use a fusion rifle with them, you’d end up using it as your primary! Its range and kill potential is too much better.”  
“That’s true, but you can’t deny that, but I guess it really comes down to personal preference.”   
Dros nodded, “Yea, I guess that’s why Goss uses the auto rifle and shotgun. Not a whole lot of range there, but she’s brutally effective with those guns.”  
“You don’t have to tell me that, in our crucible tests, she beats me 7 times out of 10! I barely ever seem to actually get her! And I’ve seen your scores against her, you two are a lot closer to even than I am!”  
“That’s because you don’t bother to watch your own footage! In almost every one on one fight that you’ve won against her, you’ve used stealth very effectively! You move from cover to cover, or angle to angle to keep her guessing where you’re bullets are gonna come from next! You lose most often when you try and use your golden gun against her. It leaves you too exposed, you pull it out once you have a bead on her, and then you try and get it again, but by then she’s put enough bullets into you that it really doesn’t matter, because your bullets won’t have offed her by the time hers get to you!”   
“Really? And how do you know that? Don’t you watch your own footage?”  
“Of course! I’ve watched about 8 hours of footage for each member of our fire team. I wanted to know what each of us does as far as fighting goes when we’re in teams. You do a lot of stuff that distracts your opponents and keeps them from looking at the enemies who are really focusing fire on them, Gossamer is good at pumping a whole lot of bullets at a single target without getting distracted by other things, and it looks like I’m pretty good at getting shot at by lots of things without taking enough damage to be made into Ghost soup.” Bea popped out of his head and started laughing.  
“Ghost soup? How are you a soup? It’s more like titan soup!” Antzu laughed too.  
“Doesn’t sound too healthy! There’s a lot of metal involved in chewing that up!”  
“Oh shove off you two! I’ll lean on you, I swear!” he held out his hand and Bea floated over to him, landing gently in his palm, before he moved her over to his shoulder. “Anyway, what do you think the reason we were sent here is? I mean, just about any team of guardians could have done this mission, even just one of the regulars could have done this. Hell, one of the vanguard could have done this all on their own, and would probably be done by now! Why send three trainees? I mean, if dead orbit wants the salvage from here, why didn’t they just send their own team? It’s not like they’ve cared in the past.”  
“It is a little strange, but I think there’s probably a pretty decent reason. I mean, in all of our other training exercises, we’ve been kinda scattered around as far as team work goes. We all just sorta… split up and go our own way. I think we’ve probably failed most of our group tests up till this point.” He leaned in and stage whispered, “I wonder if we should just go along with whatever Goss says, no matter how stupid it may be.” a small cardboard box hit him on the side of his helmet and fell to the ground.  
“That, was very underwhelming.” Goss was staring at her projectile, which Dros had scooped up and taking apart. “Do my directions usually sound dumb?”  
“Well, sometimes they seem about as effective and useful as throwing a box of… this looks like Nyquil? At crash glass.” Antzu said. “They’re just very round about.”  
“They take too long.” Dros said. “You remember that scouting mission we went on a few weeks ago? Where we had to climb up that old ‘abandoned’ tower?”  
“The one where the civilian volunteers where supposed to be milling about ready to paint ball us down?” Goss asked.  
“Yea, the one where we had motion sensors telling us that there were no civilians around on our floor, but you still insisted on having Antzu camo around each corner and report back, and up each set of stairs, and literally anywhere I could have told you was clear. It took us four hours. The only time that had ever been recorded taking longer, was when it was guardians being used instead of civilians back in the early days. We honestly could have all walked up those faster, if we just didn’t give a shit like everyone else.”  
“But the vanguard praised us on being thorough…” she said.   
“They praised us because it was tradition.” Antzu said quietly. “Any team that makes it threw without dying, doesn’t get criticism. Openly. I got an ear full from Coulaum minutes after everyone else had left.”  
“You guys never mention these things. If I’m supposed to be a leader, I’m also supposed to listen to you, so I know what I can do better to help you guys be your best. Tell me if something pisses you off, ok?”  
"Fine, but that doen't mean I'll like doing it..."  
"As long as you do it."  
"Fine" he muttered walking away  
Dros stared as he walked towards the back, thinking quietly to himself.  
"Well, i'm gonna step out and make a daily log." he stepped out front, losely holding his gun


	9. A Deep Breath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the huge delay in updates. things happened and i kinda ended up totally forgetting i was writing this for a while, but i'm still working on it, and i plan to keep working on it till i can get it finished. updates should happen more often then just once a year from here on out.

"Bea?" Dros said, stepping into the ally behind the drug store. "Can you start a second recording? Audio only?"  
"Sure, I'll start recording when you start talking!" she chirped.  
"Thanks Bea. Ok. Day one in the creepy abandond town? it's a little too big to be a town, but not really a city. We're set up in this small, all cement building. It's actually not too bad. It's got a nice back space that we're using to cook a really small deer that Antzu took down. Goss actually found this place for us before we even left. Gotta respect her abuility to analize pictures." He started paceing around the ally. "I just don't know what the vanguard expects of us. We're just three 'kinderguardians' whatever the hell that is, and we haven't even been told how this shit is supposed to go down. All i know is that we're here, but we don't even know what we're looking for. With as much information as we have, we could be looking for the washing machines next..." his voice drifted off as he staired around one of the corners. "next door. Sorry, I thought I heard something. Anyway. We don't even know what we need to find, or how much of it. It kinda feels like bullshit. End log."  
"Got it. You know, we actually don't really have the inventory space for much salvage. We could snag a couple data pads, or maybe something the size of a small fishtank." Bea said. "Probably our mission is gonna be more about identifying where bigger more valuable salvage is. Or the vanguard is just trying to stress test us. Why else would they make us walk the whole way there and back?"  
"That sounds pretty reasonable, but why not tell us what to look for at the very least?" Dros asked, as Antzu poked his head out and tried to signal to get Dros's atention. "What's up Antzu?"  
"Sorry, I thought you might've still been recording. About how much meat do you want? We're not doing anything fancy with this, we just don't have the suplies to do anything more then basically boiled meat."  
"Naw, just talking to Bea. Cut me off a slab about twice the size of your palm, I guess? that should tide me over better then the meal bars. Want me to cook it so you can make a log?"  
"Nah, I'll make one when I'm on watch tonight. I'll send Goss out so she can."  
"Ok, I'll be in in just a second, there's gonna be a really loud noise in a second, unless you happen to have some sparrow oil on you?"  
"No? What do you need it for?"  
"See this dumpster?" Dros placed a hand on a dumpster a few feet from the back door. "I'm gonna see if I can't block one of these allys, or put up a bit of cover neer the door."  
"I don't think that that's a great idea with what could be fallen central right next door. Maybe check with Goss first? Get her input."  
"Yea, I probably should." he gently pushed past Antzu on his way inside. "'Scuse me, hey Goss! You wanna make a log outside? And maybe help me block off half the ally with a dumpster?" Gossamer poked her head out of the small backroom.  
"Nah, I'll do that tonight while I 'sleep'. Why would we block off the ally? It's not like we know anything about the buildings behind us."  
"Cause I'd like to be able to limit the number of ways that the fallen can get at us. We are a ways into their territory now, and if we've gotta fight them, I don't wanna get overwhelmed."  
"Ah, if you can do it quietly, then go for it. I'll give you a hand lifting it in a minute, I'm making a list of places to check out tomorrow, to see if we can find anything else."  
"Ok, I'm gonna double check the ally and pick a choke point to cut off." Dros said headed back out the ally. Goss nodded to herself before ducking back into the back room and turned back to the map she had packed in place of food. There we a few circles on nearby buildings and two with buildings crossed off, indicating where they had already searched.  
"Hey, Phanes," Gossamer held out her hand and her ghost, Phanes, materialized on her palm, "Can you run a search for some of the banners we found in the maze? I have a feeling that they're gonna be important in the next couple days."  
"Sure thing!" After a few moments they spoke up again. "The only thing I could find on what I have stored, is a hit on the house of Kings banners. which is strange, because the house of kings normally isn't this close to the city. Usually the house of Devils os the only one that harrasses the walls."  
"That is rather strange... do you have anything on their religous practices? What about the woman we found?"  
"There has never been a recorded event of a ritual killing or even fallen moving non-fallen courpses, but there was no blood in the building, so I have to assume that that is what they did. Perhaps this is something new that they're trying out? Who knows what the fallen worship other then the Traveler."  
"That leaves me with a lot of un-answered questions. but i think we should probably look for another place to stay tomorrow."  
"I concure."  
Gossamer opened the door and stepped out looking around.  
"Antzu? Where are you?" She called.  
"Here!" he called, waving his hand above some shelves that he had aranged to stop some of the light from a small cooking fire he had started in the main room.  
"Ah! There you are!" she said walking over to his box of shelves. "I have a proposition for you. tomorrow, instead of searching buildings for gear, can you search for a couple of fallback points, or alternative bases, I really don't like that we parked ourselves right next to the fallen thing next door."  
"Sure, it makes sense. I mean, I like not being dead forever, now that I'm alive again."  
"Er, yea, I just want us to get out of this alive-ish. Preferably with a pass. i don't want to get sent back threw basics again."  
"Yea, me neither. Anyway, want some food?"  
"I'm... an exo? I can't eat."  
"Oh. yea. sorry."


End file.
